 Salads can be tasty minus the calories
I love salads. I always have. Unfortunately, I can attribute many of the pounds I had to lose to my love of salads. Most of the large and tasty prepared salads that you get at restaurants run at least 2000 calories and some can hit 3500 calories or more.
I used to think that in order to lose weight that I would just have to give up salads. Of course, it's not the veggies, it's the dressing, but how on earth do you eat a salad with no dressing? And I've never been one of those that could consume a bowl of lettuce and veggies dressed with lemon juice.
But it is possible to have your salad and want to eat it too, and here is how:
Start with your greens. Use whatever you like. If you can, use several different types. Put the greens in a big bowl, filling it to the top. Now, get both hands in there and tear it all up. Just keep working through all the greens, shredding and tearing. Your bowl should end up about half full when you are done.
Next comes the dressing. I strongly suggest that you go for a light dressing that is all natural (no high fructose corn syrup). It will probably contain a few more calories per serving (70 as opposed to 50), but you will get greater taste satisfaction. Measure out the exact 2 tablespoon serving size. If you like, you can measure it into a small cup and add a tablespoon of water or balsamic vinegar to make it stretch a little further. Pour the dressing over the greens and toss it all throughout. Use a big spoon to toss and mix until all the greens are well coated.
Now add all the veggies you want. Chop them into fairly small pieces, add them to the greens and toss some more.
If you are making a salad for more than one then you will need to change a couple of things: Be sure to add additional dressing, 2 tablespoons per person. Chop up the veggies and mix them together in their own bowl. Separate the dressed greens into individual bowls. Put one serving of greens and one serving of veggies back into the big bowl and mix together. Put mixed greens and veggies back into the individual bowl. If you don't do this, you can end up with all of your veggies on the bottom of the big bowl and they won't get distributed evenly.
You can now add a little bit of crunchy stuff on the top, such as croutons, bacon bits, etc., but watch your serving sizes and be sure to measure.
There you have it. A great big salad, well dressed and with lots of flavor. You'll get a great deal of meal satisfaction without paying for it later on the scale. |
